1. Are bagels healthy?

With no doubt, the American people have a great passion for bagels. In 2017, data from the U.S. Census and the Simmons National Consumer Survey has reported that more than 200 million Americans ate bagels. Whether you’re a bagel lover or not, there might be times you wonder if the bagel in your daily meal is all that healthy. Let’s continue reading to find out the answer for this question.

In case you’re in a hurry at the beginning of day, a bagel can do it best and act as a convenient food for breakfast. However, if your intention is following a low-carbohydrate diet, then this baked treat isn’t quite an ideal choice of food. The real question here are bagels healthy for our health and what could be the best way to eat bagels without affecting our health?

Bagels are considered as an attractive morning breakfast food. Many eaters, who are into low-fat food, usually look for bagels while thinking that it is a healthy choice. Today’s topic raises the question – are bagels healthy?

It is hard to blanket all bagels as good or bad. The answer to this question depends on the different types of bagels. When it comes to whole-grain bagels, then they are healthier than refined products due to their higher amount of fiber and nutrients, which are the common components often found in whole-grain flour. Meanwhile, many bagels with additional flavours have other ingredients such as sugar, cheese. These ingredients might decrease the bagel nutrition value and even bring harm to its eater’s health. Therefore, in order to know the answer to the question are bagels healthy, let’s dig into some different types of bagels. Since not all types of bagels are considered healthy, there are also different ways to make bagels become part of a nutritious breakfast, yet still provide you good health and enough energy to get ready for a new day!

2. Calories in a bagel

This part will give you the answer to questions similar to how many carbs in a bagel and how many calories in a bagel.

Speaking of the nutrition facts of bagels, one plain bagel (100 grams) consists of 48 grams of carbohydrates and nearly no fat, protein or fiber. The sugar component inside bagels is equivalent to over three slices of bread and gives our body about 250 calories from carbohydrates after consumption.

If plain white bagels cannot be the best choice for your daily mean, switch to whole-grain bagels, they can certainly provide you a nutritious breakfast if eaten in the correct way with other dishes.

Despite the fact that bagels have nearly no protein, fiber, or fat, enriched bagels, however, can give us vitamins and minerals. When talking about bagel calories, one wheat bagel (100 grams) has 2.76 milligrams of iron, which means it contains 15.3% of the daily value of this essential component of healthy red blood cells. Besides, wheat bagel also has 108 milligrams of folate, which mean it contains 25% of the daily value folate. A balanced breakfast should have a good amount of protein, but a wheat bagel only has 10 grams, which is approximately 6% of the daily value.

Because of its sodium content, bagels should be eaten in moderation. The American Heart Association recommends that we only approximately 1,500 milligrams of sodium in a day. When it comes to everything bagel calories and other components, please note that one wheat bagel has 439 milligrams of sodium. Eating too much sodium can lead to high blood pressure and heart disease.

To sum up, in case you’re wondering are bagels healthy, just remember to keep your daily bagel consumption at a right amount while eating the right type.

3. Calories in bread

Let’s talk about a type of food that is similar to bagels – it’s bread! The calories that one slice of bread contains can easily be added into your daily diet and still not ruining your balanced calorie-eating goals. However, if your meal has more than two slices of bread – either it’s in a sandwich or a toast – the amount of calories in white bread is high enough that they can accumulate quickly.

One slice of white bread (those which are commercially prepared) contains 80 calories. Homemade bread made using 2% of milk can give its eater about the same amount of calories, if the slice is the same as typical commercial white bread. A slice of homemade bread that is thick, usually has 120 calories.

In one slice of white bread which is made from refined flour, there is 14.72 grams of total carbohydrates. This amount of carbs can be calculated into approximately 58.88 calories, which means it’s 74 percent of the total calories. There’s only 0.8 grams of fiber inside a slice of white bread and an additional 1.52 grams of sugar. Therefore, most of the carbs contains starches.

From a slice of commercially prepared white bread, you will be able to get 2.7 grams of protein and barely 1 gram of fat. These amounts of components equal 10.8 calories from protein and nearly 9 calories from fat. If your body consumes homemade bread with 2 percent of milk in it, it can gain about the same amount of calories.

Note that refined white flour consists of various types of vitamins and minerals. For example, you can find iron and folate in refined white flour. This results in the fact that a slice of white bread can act as a good source of both nutrients. Your body will also be able to get calcium and other B vitamins. However, keep in mind that one slice of white bread can give your body about 147 milligrams of sodium, and this amount of sodium is about 10 percent of your recommended daily intake.

4. Bagel with cream cheese

We all know that bagel with cream cheese is quite a familiar treat in American cuisine and the cuisine of New York City. Bagel and cream cheese is often eaten for breakfast in the United State. With smoked salmon goes along, it sometimes becomes an ideal food choice when served for brunch. Back in the 1900, in New York city, a common combination of bagel usually consisted of a bagel with toppings such as red onion, lox, cream cheese, tomato and capers.

In the past, American food manufacturers and publishers had introduced, made popular and promoted the combination of a bagel with cream cheese to consumers in American. Let’s look back at some marketing campaigns in the past that have their focus on bagels with cream cheese. We have the “aggressive advertising campaign” launched by Kraft Foods in the early 1950s that depicted Philadelphia-brand cream cheese with bagels. Again, in the year 1977, the two magazines called Better Homes and Family Circle published a recipe booklet of bagel and cream cheese booklet that was distributed in the magazines and also put them in dairy cases in the supermarket.

This part will let you know whether cream cheese bagels are healthy, as well as provide you the information about bagel with cream cheese calories.

The calories in a plain bagel with cream cheese are up to the size of the bagel and on the amount of cream cheese you use as well. We all know that cream cheese is high in fat, too much cream cheese on a bagel can make the calories add up fast. Our advice is just uses 1 tablespoon. Besides, pay attention to low-fat cream cheese to reduce even more calories and fat.

Usually, a plain, medium bagel contains 270 calories, while a bagel of smaller size has just 177 calories. Meanwhile, one tablespoon of regular cream cheese consists of 50 calories, and 30 calories for low-fat cream cheese. With a quick math, we can estimate that a medium bagel with 1 tablespoon of cream cheese has 320 calories and a small bagel with 1 tablespoon of low-fat cream cheese has 207 calories.

5. Making a Healthier Bagel

Besides choosing a whole-grain bagel for option, you can make your bagel healthier by adjusting your portion size. Just eat half of a bagel instead of devouring it all. By eating half of this treat, it means you’re reducing the carbohydrate hit on your blood sugar. Half of a whole-grain bagel can provide your body about 24 grams of carbohydrate, this is definitely a much more reasonable amount for your body. Moreover, due to the fact that it supplies 3.5 grams of fiber, an indigestible component once it gets into your body, you’re really just getting around 20 grams of carbohydrates from that half of a whole-grain bagel that you ate.

In order to make further improvement on the nutrition of your daily-eaten bagel, you can scoop some of the breading out and try to fill it with healthy, low-calories ingredients such as leafy greens and lean protein, scrambled eggs could be an ideal example in this case. Once you’re able to follow these tips, your lovely bagels can transform to be a part of a much healthier breakfast (or lunch)

One thing we all may have known is that the fat content of bagels is mostly caused by their topping. With only two tablespoons of regular cream cheese, you already add around 100 calories and 6 grams of saturated fat in your body if you eat them. Since light cream cheese is a healthier topping that provides only 90 calories and 5 grams of saturated fat, try to stick to it. However, the best choice for a low-calorie bagel will always be peanut butter – Once you use this, your bagel can even be healthier.

Once you’re shopping for more bagels, pay a close attention for whole-grain bagels. Those bagels, which are labelled as “whole wheat” come from whole grains. Meanwhile, those labels that say “nine-grain” and “multi-grain” mean that your bagels may not be whole grains. In order to be certain about its components, just find and read the list of ingredients on the package of the bagels.